Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A Conversation With Author Maurice Broaddus on Speculative Fiction, the Craft of Writing, Race and Science Fiction, and C.L. Bryant

I hope you all have a good and restful Thanksgiving. For our first podcast episode I reached out to a long time friend and fellow expert on Star Wars to discuss the future of the franchise in light of Lucas Arts sale to Disney.

In this newest podcast, I am keeping with our ghetto nerd theme. Because of your kindness I was able to attend the World Science Fiction Convention, which was held here in Chicago during August of this year. There, I met Maurice Broaddus. He is cool folks. He is also an accomplished fantasy and speculative fiction author. Maurice is the author of the Knights of Breton Court series of "urban fantasy" novels. He is also the editor of the horror anthology series Dark Faith.

In this conversation, Maurice and I discuss the craft of writing, race and the science fiction community, and his "evolution" to being a principled conservative who also embraces the tenets of black liberation theology. Oh yeah--how can I forget--Brother Maurice also had the good fortune to interview C.L. Bryant, black propagandist garbage pail kid buck-dancing conservative for hire and the producer of the hellish documentary Runaway Slave.

In all, some good stuff here. I hope you enjoy it and also become a fan of Maurice Broaddus.

8 comments:

Many moons ago, I was one of those who tried to pull a Jedi mind trick on you in order to facilitate the podcasting process -again, we see how the Force, Crom, or L.Ron works in mysterious ways...

I'm not sure if you'll be gearing your podcast solely toward the racial aspects of sci-fi (and that, of course, holds limitless possibilities in and of itself), but if you are leaning that way... (and I'm sure you've probably already thought of this) I'd love to hear a back & forth between you and one of my personal favorites, Walter Mosley, although I must confess, I haven't read his sci-fi novels.

Guess I better catch up on those... Anyway, hope your holiday is tops all the way, friend. I look forward to listening to the podcast later and I'll drop another comment if anything strikes me as relevant.

@Cbid. You too. enjoy the holiday. watch my pats win. try to figure out the touchdown call in the Detroit game.

I am going to be talking to a range of folks. The next podcast should be about submarine warfare, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cold War. Yes. Those topics. I enjoy good convos about a range of matters.

If you know Mosley and he would lower himself to chat with the humble Chauncey DeVega I am down ;)

Excellent interview--I've listened to it three times already, and a lot of what you two spoke about I've seen and experienced as a science fiction/fantasy reader who's also a person of color (not to mention the fact that I'm also a freelance artist who works in a manga/anime influenced style).

Great work--looking forward to the next podcast. I'm also going to spread the word about this one.

@Marc. How kind. Glad you liked it and found it validating/insightful/useful.

Once we get 10 or so of these done I will put them on Itunes and Soundcloud. I may do that sooner if there is interest.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I am still figuring out the technical side. Clear enough? Did the conversation seem like two folks talking and you the listener are listening in? I prefer informal to and fro as opposed to here is a list of questions type of interviewing.

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I am a political essayist, cultural critic, educator, and host of the podcast known as "The Chauncey DeVega Show".

I have been a guest on the BBC, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

My writing has been featured by Salon, Alternet, The New York Daily News, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, as well as online magazines and publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Judge me by my enemies. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.